Monday after dinner Chris was in the backyard and I was walking out the door to tell him I was going to put gas in my car. As I opened the door the pager went off for a fall near the church in South Willard. He waves at me and says "Its just a fall have fun!" and I said Ok and went in my car to the station. I was wearing shorts, tennis shoes and ankle socks so at the station I threw on my wild land pants and cowboy boots I keep there. By the time we got in the truck it had escalated from the initial page to the patient is 2 1/2 miles up the mountain in a canyon. At this time I called Chris on the phone and said bring the side by side because we have a few trails down there and we might need it to get to the patient easier. He didn't want to and didn't think it was going to be that big of a deal but he finally listened and headed our way. When we got on scene we had a few landmarks the kids had given dispatch and they had his GPS coordinates but the GPS and the descriptions he was giving weren't quite matching up and we had a canyon on each side of where they possibly were. The 911 caller was able to hike to the top of one of the hills to flag us down. We saw where he was and went oh shit.. this is going to be a hike. At first they were telling us the patient was able to walk and they didnt think he was really too hurt. They had thought he fell about 40ft. The orange dot is where the patient actually was.
Because of the angles of the hillsides and terrain we had to hike across the hill. Right below the canal road is where we started and were staged at. The green line is as far as we were able to get the side by side to. 3 of us took off on foot and started hiking to the patient. The orange line is how we had to hike to get to where they were at. We had to cross one ravine and go up around a rock outcropping to get to the other side. The black line is where Life Flight was able to land at.
We were just about to drop over the rocks and onto the patient side of the hill when Life Flight started circling us. I thought they were going to drop off a crew member with supplies to hike into the patient with us so I stopped and waited.
You know you've hiked pretty dang high when the helicopter is BELOW you lol!!
See that rock right under the helicopter. Thats what they landed on. Its a straight drop off on the other side.
Only they didn't let anyone out of the bird. They wanted the patient packaged before they would drop off anyone to hoist them out. They couldn't get into where he was to drop off someone and we were almost to the patient. We had to keep hiking in.
I was about 40 yards from the patient at this point. The other 2 people with me were with him already. I had the radio and was running communications. Id stopped on top and got some info from the kid that called, hiked in some and stopped to relay GPS coordinates to command. I knew I was in a good opening here and wasnt sure if Id have signal once we got to the patient.
Well when we got to the patient we found out he was NOT ambulatory and a lot worse off than they had advised us. There was no way he was walking out on his own. We were on about a 70-80 degree angle in a bed of rocks on a rock slide with sand underneath it. We had a 100 ft drop off about 60 yards below us and it was straight up hill to rock cliffs above us. We determined he actually feel about 60-70 ft and then hit the side hill and sild/rolled another 300 ft at least. I was at the head of the patient. We bandaged him where they hadnt, made him a c-collar out of supplies we had and monitored his vitals. I was in charge of c spine. We had 2 by standards with us. The friend who stayed with him and the dad of the friend who stayed with him. About 30 minutes after we got to the patient Chris and another member came hiking up to us. The pt was cold and Chris gave him the shirt he was wearing as a blanket. The kids were hiking in t shirts and shorts and had no other supplies with them. Chris hiked back out and met some Search and Rescue members who were just dropped off by helicopter. They got to us about an hour after we had been with the patient. At this time its just starting to get dark. We have to wait for more Search and Rescue members to be shuttled up with supplies. 2 more of our own members hiked up to us on their own with out being Life Flight shuttled. We eventually get a backboard and stokes basket to put the patient in. They also flew us a backpack with 18 bottles of water. We had about that many people on the mountain.
He was a teenager but he was 6'2 and 180 lbs. By this time its DARK. We are on a very very steep rocky and slippery side hill. We have two options and one really isnt an option. They wanted to go straight down but there is a 100 ft drop off below us.. so that only left one more option. Straight up and across. It took a while but we got him all strapped in, ropes and pulleys set up and were ready to start carrying and hoisting him. We had to go 300 ft STRAIGHT up the mountain. We were in shale rock so we kept getting rock slides on top of us.
We have him all strapped in and my job of c spine is done. I move slightly out of the way so they can start tying into him.
And now its time to go straight up. Its a damn good thing it was dark so we couldnt see how high and steep we were. I saw it in the day light so I had a pretty good idea. They had a rope system strung up into the trees above us and at least 6 people around the basket lifting as they pull with the ropes up the hill.
We had to go 300 ft up. It was climbing with your hands and feet grabbing onto each bush you can to keep your footing and pull yourself up. The ones with the basket were creating a landslide of rocks and sand from having to try and walk up the hill.
My job was to keep track of the 3 by standards we had with us and to get them out safely. The crew would move the patient up the hill and then we would move ahead of them but out of the way so we didnt slide rocks at them. So while they were moving we were stopped and while we were moving they were stopped. Thats how I was able to get some pictures.
There is my shirtless husband. He helped carry the patient the entire mountainside. I was so proud of him and also so worried at the same time that either one of us were going to slide to our deaths. We were slipping and sliding constantly. It was so bad at some of the parts where we had to start working down hill we (those who werent carrying the patient) had to go down on our butts digging our heels into the ground going from piece of sagebrush to pieces of sagebrush for handholds to keep from sliding down the hill.
We made it the 300 ft up and then had to traverse the side hill straight across for 900 ft. All again by rope relays, but keep in mind none of us are harnessed into the rope systems besides 2 rescuers. We are just free. We finally made it to the rocky area where the caller stood on top to flag us down. By this time the helicopter started coming back to us. Now normally they dont do this at night but the pilot had landed at the spot 5 times prior dropping off personnel and felt comfortable enough to do a night landing. To put this in perspective where he landed he has a 200 ft drop off out the drivers side about 2 ft from his door. The front blade is with in a foot or two of some rocks. The side blades are coming with in a few feet of the ground. He was an excellent pilot. They were going to hot load (keep the motor running) but felt confident enough to cold load (shut the helicopter completely down)
The white light is the helicopter. The green light is where the patient is while we were waiting for them to shut down.
We finally got him to the helicopter. The call came in just before 7pm. We were with him probably with in just over an hour of the initial call so figure 8pm. We were able to get him to the helicopter at 1am. The Life Flight crew was awesome. They were completely impressed how FAST we traversed the hill and got him to them. They kept yelling out to us that we were rock stars and how awesome we were. As they were loading the patient he started yelling for Chris (who was helping load him) They had bonded during the hike. Chris kept talking to him to keep him awake. He had severe head and facial trauma and was wanting to go to sleep. He told Chris he needed to shake his hand before he took off in the bird.
Loaded and ready to go.
and theyre off!
At this point all 20 of us have to still hike off the mountain in the dark. Instead of going back the way we came we took a mountain goat trail and came directly off the face side hilling it. We made it down to where our side by side, Search and Rescues Ranger and one of our members Rangers were waiting. They had a cooler full of Powerade and water.
3 of us shared 1 bottle of water hiking to the patient. We gave our other bottle to the patient and when they flew us in water it was enough for one bottle per person that was up there. We didnt get back down to the UTVs until 2 am.We loaded them up full of people and headed back to the command post. I was so dehydrated and had such a horrible headache. I was super nauseous. I hid behind the Search and Rescue trailer and puked my ever living guts out. I couldnt let them see me be sick. I was the only girl on the call! We had a quick debriefing and said it was time to go home. Chris, Me and another member got into our side by side and headed for home. It had driven to the scene at 60 mph for about 5 miles. Climbed the rocks and hill, carried out 5 people and was doing another 60 mph for 5 miles on the way home. I was in the passenger seat with my eyes closed, head pounding and trying to not throw up again when all of a sudden clunk clunk and it started shaking and stopped moving. We were 4 blocks from our house and the belt had SHREDDED. Todd was not far behind us so we called him, pulled out the wench cable and he towed us home.
This is what was left of it when we tore into it the next morning. Looks like we will be buying a heavy duty belt this go round!
